Sep 4, 2008 12:12 am US/Pacific
SF Bank Under Siege By People Facing Foreclosure
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ―
A San Francisco Wachovia branch was under siege Wednesday afternoon by people on the verge of losing their homes. Those people accuse the bank of giving them mortgages that the bank knew they couldn't afford. Wachovia is the owner of the former Oakland-based World Savings, a bank that CBS 5 has been investigating for months.
The bank is one of the Bay Area's largest, but one that advocates say repeatedly refuses to modify loans and help keep customers in their homes.
A CBS5 investigation revealed a pattern of loans to elderly minority homeowners in Oakland and other cities, loans many now say they didn't understand, and could never afford.
One of those people is 81-year-old Nell Walker of San Francisco, whose family said in 2006 received a "Pick-A-Pay" loan for over $300,000 even though she's on a fixed retirement income.
"I think a lot of it was misleading and it wasn't explained," said Walker.
"They gave it to my mom and to this day we still don't know how. She has never worked a day in her life," said her daughter Jacqueline Phillips.
Now the minimum payment is about to go up, and Walker may lose her home of over 40 years. "It's awful! I'm 81 years old," she said.
"We got fooled into loans that we couldn't understand, and I think they need to show a little good faith and renegotiate our loans," said her daughter.
Phillips, who belongs to community organizing group Acorn, took her frustrations directly to the teller counter at this downtown Wachovia office.
The demand: that the branch fax a letter to Wachovia's new CEO. "We would like you to fax this to your CEO," she told the branch manager.
"We will not," he replied. As she later put it to us: "Just like Wachovia, that's what you get. The brushoff."
A few hours later the bank did agree to fax the letter, which calls for Wachovia to renegotiate the protesters' loans.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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